I Chose To Have A Late-Term Abortion Because I Love Both My Daughters

The issue of late-term abortion has been raised once again because of the political climate and the introduction of “heartbeat” and “personhood” bills in Congress. Last year in October, during the presidential debate, Donald Trump, then-presidential candidate disturbingly defined a late-term abortion as “take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

Republican lawmakers are continuing to build on these bills such as H.R.490, which would make late-term abortion illegal which means once the heartbeat of the fetus is detected, it would become illegal for the abortion to be performed.

The heartbeat of the fetus can be detected at six weeks when the majority of women are not aware that they are pregnant. Such legislation is thereby unconstitutional because at that stage women are themselves unaware.

The central aspect that Republicans and Trump do not think about is the real face of the individuals behind the issue who have to go through a tremendous amount of grief to make such a decision which has nothing to do with “ripping” out a fetus. Anti-abortion bills such as H.R.490 do not make exceptions for incest or rape. They don’t even consider what people like me go through because I am one of those real faces who is still grieving the loss.

I struggled to get pregnant for a long time. However when the treatments that my husband and I tried failed, we decided to travel from Texas to the Czech Republic for donor eggs. In the Czech Republic, the cost of a donor egg is around $6k as compared to the U.S. $20. We transferred two embryos last February and were over the moon with happiness. We were already in love with both of them and named the baby A as Olivia and baby B as Catherine.